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Save This Old House: The Schriber House

A neglected house in need of a rescue is the theme of Save This Old House, a popular feature in the pages of This Old House magazine. And who doesn’t love a happy ending? Here’s one! The Save house featured in our July 2015 issue is the Schriber House, in Oshkosh, WI, a 1912 red-brick Georgian Revival house originally built for a local banker. Over the years, the house had become part of the grounds of the Paine Art Center and Gardens, which by 2015 wanted to expand. The Center offered the house for $1 as long as the buyer agreed to move the house intact. By luck, a company that professionally moves houses had a tie to the Schriber House and took on the project. DeVooght House and Building Movers, a family business with several locations, including one in nearby Valders, WI, purchased the house, knowing that the company’s founder (the late father of the current owners) had years earlier told his daughter, Tammie, that the house would one day need to be moved if the museum were to expand. The DeVooghts bought the house, and in late May 2016, a DeVooght team used more than 30 jacks to lift the three-story, 200-ton house 6 feet and put it on 112 remote-controlled wheels; they then slowly rolled the 4,500-square-foot house one block north. For now, the house remains in the DeVooght family: “While the exact plans have not been fully finalized, the house will likely be sold,” says Deanna DeVooght, VP of operations for DeVooght House and Building Movers. A happy ending indeed.